Often times we feel like a salmon upstream in our local Urban Outfitters. We never feel like we are wearing enough layers or hip enough sunglasses, but it's worth the time to check out some of their home decor items. On the way downstairs to do just that, two things caught our eye... click through the jump to see what they were. 
We have come to think of plumbing pipe as our go to material when DIY-ing projects around the home. They can be table legs, closet units, track lighting and in this case... a coat rack. A flange will run you between 3-5 dollars (depending on the diameter) and the length of pipe between 5-10 dollars depending on the length and type of metal. We think it's a smart idea (especially if you have a coat you like to show off)! Or maybe you use two pipes in this fashion with a board over the top for shelving. The possibilities are endless with such versatile materials.
Always having had a "thing" for lots of books in our space, the idea of having them on your wallpaper never really crossed our minds. But these few sheets behind some clothing displays were rather attractive and brought a bit of warmth to a usually cold wall. It seems silly, because why put up something that represents clutter in the first place, but it focuses the eye on the racks of clothes (and thus encouraging those with money in their pockets to stop and take a look.). But what if this arrangement was in your home and not in a store. It would be a great way to set off a single area of your home visually without feeling like you are weighing down an entire wall.
Plus it makes wallpapering a bit more economical. You could simply take picture of books at your local bookstore or library and have Kinkos enlarge them for you. The cost of each sheet will depend on paper size chosen and quality of print (but as you can see these weren't the best prints either and they look just fine, so don't be afraid to save a few pennies!).
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Comments (11)
I never feel that I'm cool enough to shop here....all their salespeople weigh in at 100 lbs....w/ big hair. And that is the men!
funny that just pictures of books tells a rather long story about corporate hipster culture..
Sheesh! More book fetish...
okay - three guesses: why aren't the books in those wallpapers sorted by colour?
:-P
I love the piping-as-coatrack idea but the books wallpaper seems a little forced to me. I'd rather have real books!
I do love Urban Outfitters though; one of the only places I can find clothes in my size. I find more and more stores are sizing for the increasingly overweight consumer and for those of us who keep trim, it's getting harder to find a good fit.
Yep, it's ironic that on a website that often advocates removing actual, readable, useful books because they compromise the all-important minimalist aesthetic, here we go advocating fake books to do nothing but add visual clutter. Hmm.
saving money on decor with Kinko's wallpaper and plumbing coat racks are the kind of nice ideas you get when you spend all your money on something else...like booze and clothes from urban outfitters....
personally, I'd rather go the real library and actually _read_ the books. I find the idea of photocopying book spines for the sake of 'easy decorating' offensive.
Michael J. Murphy, you're all kinds of wrong. Most clothing stores don't even carry sizes for people above the American average height/weight. The only possible reason you could have for making that post is to brag that you're thin and say something nasty about fat people. How about you keep your fat-hating to yourself, eh?
This strikes me as both novel and depressing for the same reason that this post does. It celebrates books as obsolete novelty items. Fake books? Books as decor objects? UO and Anthropologie elevate them as quaint and anachronistic. They are things to be fawned over by hip young things who carry iPhones and yet can sagely remember back in the day when people read actual books.
I am so over UO and Anthropology...
...next week: Decorating ideas from Quicky Mart!